Busy, busy weekend at sportsbooks all over the world with soccer, college hoops, horse racing and even some NBA betting. We’ll take a look at an interconference game between the New Jersey Nets and the Houston Rockets. By now everybody knows that the Nets are awful. 7-58 SU and 4-30 SU on the road. Houston is currently out of the Western Conference playoff racing and heading in the wrong direction. The Nets could be just what the doctor ordered to get the Rockets back in the playoff hunt. Or maybe not..

NEW JERSEY NETS VS. HOUSTON ROCKETS

You could have made that same argument a week ago when another bad team–the Sacramento Kings–waltzed into Houston and beat the Rockets on their home floor. Hopefully by now if I’ve taught you people anything is that there are many worse things to be than a contrarian. That’s generally true in most areas of life, and certainly true in sports betting. Do you think that they built those big hotels in Las Vegas by just letting people come in, bet on a bad team like New Jersey and walk away with the money? Guess again–as the Nets sunk lower in the standings and as they became a bigger joke among the American sporting public our friends the bookmakers were adjusting pointspreads in their favor.

It also helped that despite their dismal record the Nets exert a decent effort on most nights.  Those two factors–what intellectuals call ‘multiple causality’–converge…and BOOM!  The Nets are one of the hottest pointspread teams in the NBA at the moment.  Yep, the lowly Swamp Devils have covered five straight and six of eight.  Last night they put up a hellacious fight at Oklahoma City, eventually losing by 2 but easily covering the spread as +11 underdogs.  Now we’re getting roughly the same price with the Nets against a team that simply ain’t as good as the Thunder and has demonstrated that on any given night they can stink it up and lose to any team in the league.  The Rockets have failed to cover in 9 of their L14 games, so they’re not a team you want to be laying points with against anyone.  New Jersey’s performance as a road dog of 9′ to 12 points this season?  Try a beefy 7-1 ATS.  Hold your nose and take the points with the Nets.

PLAY NEW JERSEY +10 OVER HOUSTON